MIDI controlled Toy Piano

A toy piano is a wonderful instrument, especially a good Bontempi one which would equal a Steinway, only on a smaller scale of course...

But why?

..a toy piano is however horribly crude to play! To add further insult to injury, while a toy piano has a whopping 1.5 octave range, the Bontempis don't actually have the black keys !

Enter this sampling project.

Each key of the piano has been sampled at three different velocities to allow for expressing a dynamic range in your playing. All missing "black keys" have been added by interpolating the nearest available interval up or down a semitone in pitch. Now it is possible to enjoy playing a Bontempi toy piano using your favourite MIDI controller (instead of having to go through the ordeal of endlessly re-recording your mic'ed toy piano in the hope of capturing a performance without any unwanted squeaking or rattling).

A Kontakt instrument

The samples have been packaged as a Kontakt ( version 3 and higher ) .NKI file. The additional scripting possibilities of the Kontakt sampler allow for other expressive articulations by adding key off rumbling sounds to the aftertouch response, which in turn will add a bit of charm by re-introducing some unpredictable handling noise.

All samples have been recorded dry using a Shure SM57 microphone and are untreated to allow for maximum post-processing possibilities.

The .NKI-file with all individual samples will be made available for download here.